This data comes directly from the Medicare system. It compares the rate of chronic illness between Medicare patients and those with both Medicare and Medicaid. And so it compares chronic disease rates between most of us and the poor. These results are very striking to me. The rates of depression and Alzheimer’s disease are doubled.
The number of patients with hypertension is pretty close. High cholesterol is even a bit less in the poor, but diabetes is much higher. The consequences of these risk factors in the poor are much worse. Many more poor people have chronic kidney disease and congestive heart failure.
The heavy economic burden of chronic cardiometabolic disease falls on everyone. Taxes pay for the Medicare and Medicaid programs and these conditions are very expensive. Patients with diabetes consume one third of all Medicare spending. Congestive heart failure patients have about the same impact. Patients with chronic kidney disease generate one fourth of the spending and patients on dialysis add another 7%. Of course, these illnesses are are interrelated and frequently coexist. Diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, chronic kidney disease, and congestive heart failure often are present in a single individual. So these costs overlap, but there are plenty of people who have congestive heart failure who don’t have diabetes or chronic kidney disease. These conditions are very expensive and every taxpayer and business pays the bill.
We could do so much better. Even if a patient requires six drugs to control high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes, great precision medicines can be purchased for $31 a month at Walmart without insurance. Controlling risk factors with these specific medications reduces the number of people with chronic kidney disease, heart failure, and diabetic complications. An optimal medical therapy protocol containing these medications can have a dramatic effect on clinical and financial outcomes. Let’s get started!
Thanks for useful tables. Curious - where are conditions like Parkinson's Disease?
Would earlier diagnosis impact cost of care. For example, the largest cost; diabetes?